


Figureskating!Blaine/designer!Kurt Olympics AU

by wowbright



Category: Glee
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Human, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-02-22
Updated: 2014-08-06
Packaged: 2018-04-30 02:48:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5147468
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wowbright/pseuds/wowbright
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Here’s a thing I started for this <a href="http://wowbright.tumblr.com/post/76254718685/rainbowrites-luckyjak-but-why-cant-blaine">prompt</a> from <a class="tumblelog" href="http://tmblr.co/mju6VmuH021AbsGFXAkVDbw">luckyjak</a> and <a class="tumblelog" href="http://tmblr.co/mPIJTLlfk-oFBf_pnjSdOSQ">rainbowrites</a>. This is a WIP centered on the Sochi Olympics. Because I really know how to capitalize on the trends of the moment—many months later!</em>
</p>
<p>From rainbowwrites:</p>
<p>Olympics AU where Blaine is the figure skater and Kurt is the emergency designer brought in after the first one refused to work in Russia because GAY RIGHTS. This irony does not go by either of them. Kurt is so uncomfortable, but he’s not giving up his chance for his stuff to be seen by everyone who is everyone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> _Oh, and oops I started making a YouTube[playlist of figure skating elements](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8VEnUPjQLA&list=PL-cIAjOpypsGOJh1KZTopinZFTPA2EmjR) that appear in the fic._

They got the cease-and-desist order two weeks before leaving for Sochi. Due to the ongoing human rights violations under the Putin regime and the recently enacted anti-gay “propaganda” law, the Consultant could no longer in good conscience allow his designs to be worn in the Russian Olympics and therefore all Works should be returned immediately to Consultant’s address at …

Everything in Blaine’s head went fuzzy from there. “That can’t be – Wait. You’re just trying to get me to calm down about my routine by getting me to freak out about something else, aren’t you?”

Sebastian grimaced. But Sebastian never grimaced. He smirked. He sneered. He simpered. But grimacing? A grimace was a mark of pain. Sebastian didn’t feel pain. At least not the sympathetic kind. He was a class-A narcissist.

Or Blaine had thought so until now. It was what made Sebastian such a good manager. He didn’t care how tired or conflicted Blaine was about anything. He pushed Blaine to work harder, to do better, to shine. Sebastian pushed Blaine, and Blaine got more sponsorships and exhibitions, and Sebastian got more money. Sebastian helped Blaine to be ruthless – which Blaine really needed, to be honest. Ruthlessness was not his forté at all, unless you counted situations in which someone innocent was being wronged. He once broke a coffee cup on Sebastian’s head when the latter man literally snatched candy from a baby – okay, well, a preschooler, but close enough.

And the cup was styrofoam. But we digress.

Blaine closed his eyes. This was not happening.

But then he opened them, and that odd little grimace was still on Sebastian’s face.

Oh god. This was bad.

“I’m not kidding, Blaine. You can’t bring the costumes to Sochi. It’s standard in these contracts for the designers to retain the intellectual rights to their work. He’s just renting you the right to wear them, really. But he doesn’t want to rent it to you anymore.”

“That’s so … wrong. When I get a DVD from RedBox, Steven Spielberg doesn’t break into my house and snatch the movie back before I’ve even gotten through the previews.”

“Which is why we could threaten a countersuit, but – two weeks, Blaine. We don’t have the time.”

“But – I’m gay.”

“Well, yes. That much has always been obvious.”

“Has he sent a cease-and-desist order to Kansas yet? Because last I heard their laws were a whole lot worse.”

Sebastian tilted his head as if to scrutinize Blaine’s reaction at a new angle. It seemed the most appropriate possible gesture to Blaine, what with the world tilting on its axis right now. Ugh. He had to sit down.

He collapsed on the bench. A little too fast, perhaps – just a hair away from bruising the tailbone that had only finally healed. He needed to be more careful with his body, especially now. “They were perfect,“ he sighed, pressing his head into his hands. "The designs were – perfect.”

“I know,” Sebastian said. There was something almost like sympathy in his voice. It was … weird, almost creepy, to hear that coming from Sebastian.

Blaine took a deep breath. “But – okay. We’ll do this. We’ll find someone even better.”


	2. Chapter 2

The next morning, Blaine spotted Sebastian standing at the edge of the ice rink, eyes focused on the tablet in his hand. Blaine wasn’t sure how long his manager had been there; he’d been practicing the transition from a [quadruple lutz](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMQ8qNTG-jY) to a [death drop](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HeN4vdsBo6w) that was part of his long program for the past hour, growing increasingly irritated as Sue refused to show even a modicum of approval.

“I’m still bored,” she barked out for perhaps the twelfth time through her megaphone – an accoutrement that was completely unnecessary, given that they were the only people out on the ice and there was no music playing other than what was in his head. But Sue was attached to the megaphone almost as much as she was attached to her own hands.

(“Um … why do you use that thing all the time?” he’d finally dared to ask three years into working with her as his coach. “Especially when you’re standing right next to me? It kind of hurts my ears.”)

(“No one can ever use the excuse that they didn’t hear me the first time. Now stop asking questions and get back to work, Gay Clark Kent from the First Season of Smallville.”)

Blaine curled into a [pancake spin](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p8VEnUPjQLA), touching his forehead to his knee and letting his momentum falter until he came to a stop.

“What are you doing?“ Sue barked "Did I tell you to quit?”

“I’m not quitting.” Blaine hated how whiny the words sounded. He got that way when he was overtaxed. “I’m taking a break.”

“We go to Sochi in less than two weeks.”

Blaine stood up and skated toward her. He touched the megaphone with his fingertips, guiding it down from her mouth in a pacifist version of the “wax on, wax off” motion he’d learned watching  _Karate Kid_ over and over during his prepubescent crush on Ralph Macchio. “Yeah, and I’m doing a quadruple lutz, Sue. No one’s ever done that in the Olympics.”

“I really wish they’d let you do backflips. And twirl fire batons. Fire always makes things less boring.”

“Well, they won’t. Look, no matter how hard I try, I can’t make a routine work unless you find a way to make it interesting for you. You have to find a way to top yourself.”

Sue scowled. “I could say the same to you. When was the last time you got laid anyway? It was before Turin, wasn’t it? If you weren’t spending so much of your energy coming up with extravagant masturbation routines, maybe you could bring  _that_  fire to the ice.”

The veins in Blaine’s forehead pulsed. He held his breath. “I’m not talking to you right now.”

He sat down behind Sebastian when he got to the edge of the rink and began unlacing his skates.

“Bad day at work, dear?” Sebastian sniggered, not looking up from his tablet.

“I haven’t decided yet. Have any news for me on costumes?”

“I’m just looking through portfolios right now, actually.”

“Really?” In his hurry to see the pictures, Blaine didn’t bother taking off his second skate. He jumped up onto his one socked foot to peer over Sebastian’s shoulder.

Sebastian flicked the screen off.

“What did you so that for?” It came out whinier than Blaine had intended.

“Because.” Sebastian gave him an appraising look. “First off, you have no fashion sense. If it was up to you, you’d wear sweater vests and bowties to every competition.”

“No I wouldn’t. I’d wear tuxedo jackets sometimes. And feathers, if the ISU didn’t have such strict rules about them.”

“Second, if I let you look at the portfolios, you’ll start asking about the designers, and then you’ll want to know their entire life histories, and you’ll make sad puppy eyes until I agree to hire the blind Namibian transgender single mother on foodstamps as a show of solidarity.”

“Wait. Really? She sounds interesting.” Blaine reached for the tablet, but Sebastian swung it out of his reach.

“It was a hypothetical example, Blaine.”

“Oh. Well still. Namibia has some fascinating sartorial traditions.”

Sebastian gave Blaine a death glare. “I’ll decide tonight – without your help – and work on the contract tomorrow. That’s what I came to tell you. You’ll have to make time this week for some fittings.”

“Sue won’t be happy about that. You know she doesn’t want anything interfering with practice.”

“My job isn’t to make Sue happy, Blaine. It’s to get you attention so you can be rich and famous.”

“You know I don’t care about that stuff –”

Sebastian waved a hand. “Yeah, yeah, yeah. You just want to make art and help people. Blaine, you’re pushing 30 –”

“You make me sound so old.”

“Look. Barring a miracle, this is your last Olympics. And I don’t believe in miracles. You need to go out with a bang so you can make money on the tours, put it in some nice safe investments, and spend the rest of your life making art and helping people. You can’t go out with a bang in costumes that don’t fit. I’ll make sure Sue gives you the time. We can do the fittings here, anyway.”

“Okay.” Blaine might have sulked a little. He hated the business side of things. The Olympics were technically an amateur event, a celebration of youth and athleticism and artistry. Skating was an act of love and beauty.

But he did need to eat if he was going to save the world one day. Maybe he shouldn’t complain.


	3. Chapter 3

Sue was wrong. Blaine had gotten laid more recently than Turin— even if it felt like it had been even longer than that.

Not that Blaine particularly minded. Not usually, at least, and definitely not in the past few months as he’d been preparing so intensely for his probably-final Olympics.

Despite what some snowboarders might tell you, sex and high-level sports don’t mix. When you get up at five each morning for practice, going out to the gay bars every weekend to find someone to hook up with—well, it loses its luster around the time you hit 23 and it’s no longer so easy to push past the constant exhaustion. Besides, as much as Blaine enjoyed the variety, after a few years what he wanted more than anything was someone to cuddle up with on the couch while watching old Cary Grant-Katharine Hepburn movies together.

Or  _Project Runway_.

Or even  _The Greatest American Hero._ He wasn’t picky.

He thought he was in love, once or twice. There was Darrell, the boy he dated when most kids their age were applying to colleges. He and Darrell were working with the same coach, had the same sadistic expatriate Russian for a dance instructor. The bonded over quiet jokes at Iliana’s expense; it was the only sort of revenge they could get on her, because say anything to her face. They didn’t dare. She was good for them, even if they hated her—not because she constantly pushed them past where they thought they could go, but because she was pitiless as she did it.

Blaine lost his virginity in that dance studio. That wasn’t his plan, but he and Darrell had been flirting for ages by the time they snuck into it after hours just to see what it would feel like to be inside without Iliana’s oppressive glare. Just standing next to Darrell made Blaine feel woozy and short of breath, but it got even more intense as Blaine watched Darrell pick the lock, the muscles in his bare forearms rippling like the keys of a piano. Blaine wasn’t sure if Darrell had the best laugh or the prettiest face or the most generous personality—his jokes about Iliana were sometimes just a step too far on the wrong side of mean-spirited, and whenever he had the opportunity to compliment Blaine he usually said instead, “I think you could do that better"—but maybe that’s what Blaine loved about him. He felt like Darrell really saw him, flaws and all, and still—Darrell wanted him. Blaine could see it in the way that Darrell looked at him, in the way that he stood and the calculated way he looked away when his eyes were about to reveal too much.

And Blaine wanted  _him_ , wanted Darrell like he’d never wanted anyone even though he'd been fantasizing about sex since he was 12. He wanted to press their bodies together, wanted to be held down, wanted to come with Darrell and see him sated and smiling.

Darrell opened the door and they stepped quietly in. It took a moment for Blaine’s eyes to adjust, and he worried that anything could be there in the darkness. He thought he heard Iliana breathing quietly by the piano, watching their every move.

But slowly, his eyes grabbed onto the little bit of light that was in the room. They were the only two people in there, and there was so much space around them. Seeing their reflections in the darkened mirrors—Blaine suddenly saw himself as he was for the first time, young and strong and so beautiful, with an innocence that made even his own heart ache, and he saw that Darrell saw it too. They made love against the mirrors and the hard wooden floor, and Blaine watched Darrell and he watched their reflection, and they were the two most gorgeous men Blaine had ever seen.

To this day, it still gives Blaine a special thrill to masturbate in the dark with his back pressed against a hardwood floor. Early erotic impressions never fully leave us, even if the people who helped spawn them do.

Iliana is still in Blaine’s life; Darrell is long gone. Blaine got on the 2002 team, charmed the nation at the Salt Lake City Olympics. Darrell didn’t make the cut, and could never forgive Blaine for succeeding where he didn’t.


End file.
